Career information and advice from Sacred Heart University's Office of Career Development.

January 25, 2013

A few years ago as our Spring Internship & Career Fair was approaching I wrote this post about the myths relating to career fairs. For those not inclined to click through the link and read the whole post, the most important points are repeated below.

But if you only take away one thing, make it this: the career fair is your chance to meet real people. Use it.

We live in an increasingly online world and the biggest problem with a modern job search is that everyone steers you to apply online where your resume disappears into a "black hole" of applicants never to be seen again. And, yes, when you attend the fair all the recruiters will tell you to apply online. What they AREN'T telling you is that they are using the career fair to quickly evaluate you on the spot. If you make a good first impression, they will go look you up online and drag you out of the black hole. So use your time wisely, ask good questions that show genuine interest in the company and you will MAKE them pull you out of the online pile.

So, here's your reminder from my earlier post about why the myths are wrong and attending career fairs is CRITICAL:

MYTH 1: I don’t need to go to the fair because no one is hiring anyway.

MYTH 2: The job fair is only for Business majors.

MYTH 3: I don’t need to go to the career fair because all the recruiters just tell me to apply online anyway.

MYTH 4: The career fair is only for people who want to live and work in Connecticut.

The job market is not as bad as it seems! You may have friends and family out of work, you may know recent graduates who are having a hard time finding a job. Just remember this: Everyone is different and YOU only need one job. You don’t need a full economic recovery or for the unemployment rate to drop to 3%. YOU need ONE JOB. Companies ARE hiring for entry-level positions. It is competitive. You will have to be diligent in your search, aggressively network and not sit back and apply online and hope for phone calls. Career Fairs are an excellent opportunity for this.

Don’t miss the chance to NETWORK with the employers face to face! Make a good impression now and they will remember you later! GET ON THEIR RADAR. We have had many students use the relationships they start at a fair to get internships and full-time jobs months, and even years, later.

We expect more than 90 organizations coming who want to talk to YOU! The vast majority of the employers attending are willing to speak with ANY MAJOR. They are hiring for a wide variety of positions.

You NEED to have a resume with you…but they might not take it.These days almost every employer will require you to apply online through their website. There are a number of reasons for this and they have nothing to do with you personally. It doesn’t matter anyway because you are coming to the job fair to make CONNECTIONS with PEOPLE not spam your resume to every employer in the room. HAVING A RESUME ALSO SHOWS THAT YOU ARE PREPARED. Use your resume as an introduction and a conversation starter. If they keep it, great. If they give it back to you and ask you to apply online instead, do so. The important thing is to ENGAGE the recruiterand ask some questions that demonstrate you prepared for them so that when you DO apply online they REMEMBER YOU.

Many of the recruiters attending WILL be from the Connecticut offices of their organization. It makes sense for them to send the closest representative. However, many of the companies attending are NATIONAL and INTERNATIONAL companies with opportunities everywhere. This is your chance to make a PERSONAL CONNECTION with a recruiter and convince them you are a quality candidate worthy of a referral to the recruiter in the location you prefer.

The Fair is from 1:00-3:30pm on Wednesday, February 13th in the Pitt Center.

DON’T MISS IT!

Professional attire is REQUIRED.

(THIS CAREER FAIR IS NOT OPEN TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC. IT IS FOR CURRENT SHU STUDENTS AND ALUMNI ONLY)

January 10, 2013

It's coming soon and it's going to be AWESOME!

December 18, 2012

We had the opportunity to co-host a fantastic webinar on phone interviewing last week in conjunction with the SHU Office of Alumni Relations and our good friend Paul Bailo, CEO of Phone Interview Pro. Paul is a fantastic presenter and really knows his stuff when it comes to preparing for phone interviews, which is typically the first step in the process these days. For anyone who missed it live, click here to watch the archive!

November 28, 2012

The University of Notre Dame Football team just completed an exciting, and entirely unexpected, undefeated regular season...and it got me thinking about the job search process. (Full disclosure: I am a proud alumnus of the University of Notre Dame and a complete nut when it comes to following the football team. But, being the job search geek that I am, I also couldn't help but find some similarities in ND's amazing 2012 season, and the path I see many undergrad students pursuing when it comes to conducting a job search).

That's Why They Play the Games

The last time Notre Dame truly challenged for a national championship in football was 19 years ago and the last time they actually won one was 24 years ago. So, for many, including even their most ardent supporters like myself, going from unranked in the pre-season to number one and awaiting the BCS National Championship game was a complete and total surprise. As much as I'm sure the players would all say they expected to be there, you wouldn't blame them for fibbing a little now after the fact. After consecutive 8-5 seasons, starting a sophomore quarterback who had never taken a live snap in college, and a string of pre-season injuries on defense, it was tough for anyone to legitimately say they saw this coming. But here's the thing: they still got out there every week and played the game, despite the odds being against their success.

One of the biggest problems I see with seniors prepping for a job search is the propensity to give up before they start. "The job market is terrible", they say. "Unemployment is so high I'll never find anything". "Lots of my friends who graduated last year are working part time jobs, how am I going to ever find anything?". Just like Notre Dame before the season, there are lots of reasons to suspect you will fail, but the only way to guarantee you will is to not go out and play the game in the first place.

Success Depends on Previous Preparation

While Notre Dame found success this year, it didn't come easy. The coaches worked 80 hour (and longer) work weeks preparing and game planning for each opponent. The players practiced and studied film to learn all they could about their opponent before the game. They no doubt worked this hard in previous years as well, but only found real success now. Why? Because sound preparation also takes time. The coaches came in three years ago with new schemes and techniques. The players needed a few seasons to fully absorb those things and the coaches needed that time to learn how the players would respond to their instruction. They needed to understand what they wanted to do, effectively plan how they were going to do it and then doggedly follow the plan.

A job search is no different. It takes time. And the more prepared you are before you start, the more likely you are to find success. Planning to start your full-time job search as a second-semester college senior is a recipe for disaster (or at least a really long search). Even if you do everything right, a job search can take months. It is never too early to start. A truly effective plan would include years of preparation in the form of multiple internships in your chosen field. But even if you haven't started that early, at a minimum you need to understand what you want to do, where you want to do it and create a compelling argument for why they should hire you. You have to research what companies make sense based on your goal and pursue them (not just posted jobs) relentlessly.

Luck of the Irish

While Notre Dame managed to go 12-0, it was hardly a happy and care-free journey. Five of their twelve games were decided by a touchdown or less. Two in overtime, including one in triple overtime. They faced several moments throughout the season where victory was far from assured and great plays were made to pull out a victory. Guts, perseverance and a little luck were necessary along the way.

Your job search will be full of ups and downs. Interviews will go well; employers won't call you back. You'll make it to the third round of interviews, then they'll hire someone else. Inevitably, the students who find the jobs they really wanted are the ones who do the preparation, who follow the process even in the face of tons and tons of rejection, who have the guts to network even when it means talking to total strangers and who sometimes get a little lucky along the way as well. But, as the old saying goes, luck favors the prepared. Notre Dame was able to make season-saving goal line stands twice, not because of luck, but because they put in the hard work preparing for their opponents tendencies and preparing themselves physically for tough, physical play. You will find the job you want, not because you get lucky alone, but because when you do get a referral, or get that phone call back from a hiring manager, you will have done the preparation in advance to have substance behind your presentation and be able to impress them that you are ready to help their team.

Play Like a Champion Today

Before they take the field for every game, Notre Dame players touch a sign that says "Play Like a Champion Today" as a reminder that victory is not awarded just for showing up and sometimes the journey is hard. If you want to be a champion, you have to earn it through hard work.

I've worked with countless students who have found their dream jobs. Right out of college, even in the last few years with the recession in full swing. It wasn't because they were more talented than others (though many were very talented) or because they had the highest GPA (though many were very smart). It certainly wasn't just because they had earned a college degree. Inevitably, they were the ones who approached the task with focus and determination, who took risks and put themselves out there even when it was a little scary, who made the extra phone call, or attended the extra networking event. They had a goal and went for it and didn't stop no matter how many times they heard "no". They played like champions.

November 30, 2011

As a Career Coach, I edit lots of resumes and I do lots of talking to recruiters in a variety of industries about what they look for when reviewing resumes. So it stands to reason that I have my own opinions about what is good and what is bad to include in your resume. The “fun” part of putting together a resume, especially for recent graduates, is that anyone else you ask also has an opinion. Show your resume to ten different people and you will likely come away with ten different suggestions. And here’s the best part: they are all right (or at least you can’t prove they are wrong).

In keeping up with industry advice, not a day goes by that I don’t find contradictory “rules” about resumes. Include an objective every time. Never include an objective. List your education right at the top of the resume. List your education at the bottom. One page resume. Two page resume. Sorting through all this conflicting advice can be daunting.

Resumes are a subjective thing. What is essential and pleasing to some is worthless and grating to others. The resume conundrum is that, like with most other things in life, you can’t please all the people all the time. Putting a resume together is an art, not a science. There is no one “right” way to check yourself against. There are no silver bullets and no absolute rules.

So, now I’m going to give you some absolute rules.

Be You and Start From Scratch

Your resume has to be an accurate reflection of you. Since no one else is exactly like you, your resume shouldn’t be exactly like anyone else’s. However, you do have similarities with others (things like level of experience, education, target industry) that can help guide you in general terms. If you recognize this, templates can be a blessing by helping you consolidate and organize your story. If you don’t recognize this, templates are a curse that forces you to mold your story to the style provided. Know yourself first. What are the distinct things that you have to offer an employer? How can you best showcase them? Start with a blank sheet of paper and focus on your content. Let the content and your goals drive which eventual style you choose.

Be Specific

One universal truth in the working world is that no one seems to have enough time. This seems especially true of often overworked and overwhelmed hiring managers and recruiters. So, while this may not be the best approach from a pure talent management standpoint, it is nonetheless true that most hiring managers won’t take the time to “figure out” where you fit. You need to make it apparent to them. Quickly. This might happen from how you present your work experience, how you highlight past employers, through a well written objective or profile, or some combination of these things. While a willingness to do anything is a good trait for an employee, as a job candidate a lack of a specific goal may make you seem unmotivated, or worse, desperate. Desperation is not attractive.

The reason for all this seemingly different advice is that every time someone offers resume advice they offer it from their limited perspective based on their personal experience. Their perspective has to be limited. No one, regardless of their background, can know everything about every industry. And, remember, there is no one “right” way. Just because you have a relative that works in HR who said your resume was good doesn’t mean it will be good for everyone. A resume that is creative and fun in a graphic design firm might get you laughed at around the water cooler in an accounting office. Try to talk to recruiters and hiring managers in your chosen field about what they look for and use that as your guide.

Don’t Just List Skills

Simply listing your skills alone is worthless. Yes, it will help from a keyword search standpoint if recruiters in your industry use electronic applicant tracking systems. But, what happens next? Your resume comes up in a keyword search and then the actual human reading your resume has no evidence you actually have those skills. Think about it. I can list all sorts of skills, but without context and specific examples (and preferably accomplishments) they have no meaning. If I say I have experience with event management does that mean I ran a bake sale for my school club or I planned and executed an industry trade show in Las Vegas with 300 vendors and 10,000 attendees? Illustrate your skills by example, within the context of the job where you developed them and, ideally, demonstrate accomplishment as well. In other words, don't just list it. Prove it.

Focus On Accomplishment

Hiring someone is a risky thing to do. Evaluating someone’s potential through a resume and a few interviews is not a foolproof process. If the company hires you and then has to get rid of you it is expensive, and hurts productivity. As a result, whatever you can do to prove your likelihood of success in advance can help make you appear to be a less risky hire. Behavioral Interviews have been the norm in most industries for years. Those are the questions that ask “Tell me about a time when…”. The purpose of this type of questioning is to draw out from a candidate how they have reacted in previous situations as a way to predict how they will react in the future. Smart candidates use their answers to these questions as a platform to showcase their accomplishments to help them stand out from the crowd. This is essential in your resume as well. In many cases, recruiters care less about what you did than they do about how well you did it. Your performance over and above the norm is what makes you different from others who did the job before you. It is your added value. Employers are looking for people who can add value to their team. What have you done to improve things, anything, for your previous employers? Did you improve the efficiency of some process? What was the result? Did you save time? Money? How much? The more specifically you can illustrate a skill and quantify a result, the more your experience will stand out versus another candidate. While accomplishment in a job related to the one you are seeking is better, any accomplishment has value. Showing the capacity for success is the key.

Content is King, But Delivery Counts Too

As your content begins to take form, start to consider the format or style that will work best for you. There are thousands of templates out there all suggesting different styles for a resume. What matters most is your content, but you also can’t be casual about how it is delivered. If you make the resume hard to read, or the critical information hard to find, it doesn’t matter how good the content is. The best format is the one that is right for you. The style that is right for you is the one that helps deliver the content in a way that best illustrates your specific skills and accomplishments as they relate to the specific job at hand. The most effective resumes identify the key skills needed in the target job and adjust the delivery of the content to focus on examples of those skills in your past. If that sounds hard to do it is because it often is. Get some help (it’s what we’re here for).

Once you understand these general concepts, putting together an effective resume is simple. More importantly, these concepts can help you filter and interpret all the advice you receive both now and in the future.

November 17, 2011

Today's guest post comes from Bethany Gillen, one of our Assistant Director's of Career Placement. Bethany has been working hard with our students who have recently gone through the on campus interview process to help gather some info that will help future students prepare. While the fall recruiting period is winding down, interviews for spring internships are right around the corner! Start thinking now about getting ready!

Are you currently preparing for an interview? Unsure of the types of questions you will be asked? Our office surveyed Sacred Heart students that participated in on campus interviews this fall. The most popular types of questions that were asked and our recommendations for handling these questions:

What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are you doing to improve your weaknesses?

Use this opportunity to promote strengths that complement the job you are seeking. It’s important that you don’t select a weakness related to a skill needed for the job. Be able to explain the steps you are taking to compensate for, and overcome, your weakness. Employers are looking for people that are self aware and can proactively develop their skills.

Why did you select Sacred Heart and your major?

Employers are interested in knowing how you approach important decisions. Go through your decision making process, explain how you picked the schools you looked at and why you selected SHU and your major. Stating your parents wanted you to go here or you had a friend that went here won't cut it! This is a chance for you to promote your decision making skills to the recruiter!

Tell me about yourself/ interviewer asks you about a specific point on your resume.

If you get this question, be excited because it’s a chance for you to market yourself! Be prepared with a few stories about your work experiences, community service, clubs, etc. Make sure you select different experiences during the interview as the interviewer will get bored if every story you share is from the same internship/job/project. Make sure you have stories planned out for EVERYTHING listed on your resume. Some recruiters pick out specific points on the resume and ask about it. If you listed it on your resume, be prepared with a story for an interview! If you listed it on your resume and you can’t talk about it during an interview, it doesn’t leave the interviewer a good impression of you.

Why are you interested in X Company in X Division?

Make sure you are specific and have done your homework on the company prior to the interview. Be sure that you understand the job requirements and explain why you see yourself doing the job. Tell them why you are excited to work at their company (have it come through in your expressions/body language). Understand who their competitors are and what sets them apart. Read up on the trends in their industry.

Give me an example a group project that didn’t meet your expectations. What did you do? What was the outcome?

It’s extremely important that you give the interviewer background on the project, explain the problem, and what YOU did to resolve it. It’s critical that you articulate what YOUR ideas where (not your professors’/bosses/parents) to improve the project and what you learned from it.

Additional Notes:

You need to be prepared to ask 3-5 questions of the interviewer when they give you a chance to ask questions. If you are unsure of questions to ask, please see our interview guide. Numerous recruiters have told us that they’ve discounted candidates because they didn’t ask questions and didn’t seem interested. Be sure you have at least 10 questions prepared in case the interviewer answers some of your questions before you get to ask them!

You need to prepare for an interview like you would prepare for an exam. If you walk in unprepared, the interviewer will know it and you are wasting your (and the interviewers!) time. If you’ve never been on an interview before and would like more guidance, please schedule an appointment with one of our career counselors. We offer assistance with resume building, interview preparation, and internship and full time job search assistance.

October 03, 2011

There's a great article in the most recent Sports Business Journal about how to turn an internship into a full-time offer after the internship is over. The article relates to careers in sports, but the principles apply to ANY internship. [Side note: For anyone interested in a career in sports, reading the Sports Business Journal is as necessary as reading the Wall Street Journal is for a career in finance. It must be done.]

The author outlines several variables that impact if you will get an offer or not, including organizational need, luck, and availability of opportunities. However, the most important point was about your perceived value with the organization and a phrase he attributed to the Navy SEAL's which, in my experience hiring and managing interns, has always been the differentiator between interns who were "OK" and the ones in line for a full-time offer: "How you do anything is how you do everything".

In other words, there is no task too small to be done perfectly and with your full attention to detail. There is no task that is beneath you, no matter what your level of education. There is no task that is "not your job" (fair warning: don't ever utter that phrase in any workplace where you want a bigger and better position).

If you carry that "can and will do whatever it takes" attitude with you on the job each day, you will get noticed and, if opportunities exist, you will be the one considered for them. In some cases, if you perform exceptionally well, they will CREATE opportunities for you rather than lose you.

September 30, 2011

Aside from the fact that many people find the frequent, often unannounced changes to be annoying, the many changes Facebook keeps rolling out can also impact your career prospects. With each new change comes a reminder that you must be vigilant in protecting what information is shared and how. To be fair, most of the changes implemented recently have given the user more control over their information, but with every change you must understand what has changed and how you need to alter your profile and settings to best address this.

While I often remind students about the damage a poorly chosen photo or post can cause to their employment prospects, there is a growing possiblity that the most recent changes can make it a highly positive career tool as well. I have strongly advocated for years the idea that people maintain Facebook for personal relationships and LinkedIn for professional relationships. This recent article in the Harvard Business Review points out that, with the emergence of Facebook's new Timeline feature, we may be on the verge of Facebook becoming a legitimate tool for personal branding at the professional level as the customization of who sees what becomes more and more refined.

The danger, of course, is that with each new level of customization comes one more chance you will miss a setting somewhere and accidentally show your new boss that picture of you that you thought was only going to your friends. When it comes to your career and Facebook, remember the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson: "The price of Facebooking is eternal vigilance".

March 22, 2011

SHU Students and Alumni: Join the Career Development and Placement Center at this series of career events to pick up the latest information on how to organize your job search, plan your career, build a network, and interview!

Attend one presentation or all. All events are free and do not require advance registration.

Presenters are the top career authors and experts in the nation!

Mark your calendar for these Wednesday Webinar events!

March 23rd, Richard Bowles, Career Exploration

March 30th, Kathleen Barton, Mentoring

April 6th, Melissa Giovangnoli, LinkedIn (3:00pm)

April 6th, Paul Bailo, How to Ace Your Phone Interview (5:30pm) (This is a LIVE presentation!!)

November 09, 2010

I got a message through LinkedIn just the other day that is the perfect example of how NOT to use LinkedIn in your job search.

"Please keep me in mind if you hear of any marketing positions in CT or NY on the agency or client side. I have 15+ years marketing experience at XXXXX, XXXXX, ad agencies and most recently consulting on consumer packaged goods. I've also been volunteering on the Board for the XXXXXXXX. It would be great if you could connect me with someone that might be able to help in my job search. "

On the one hand this request is not awful. It is a good summary of their career and recent activity and it was reasonably specific (it hit the three critical points of "what you want", "where you want it" and "why they should hire you"). On the other hand, when put in the context of WHERE it is being delivered it comes across as both lazy and tone deaf.

The approach this person was taking is just the online version of the "old" way of networking. The kind that is less effective because it puts too much pressure on your contact to figure out the next step. I have more than 300 contacts on LinkedIn and many people have well over 500. But, more importantly, those 300 contacts connect me to more than 3 million people. So, yes, I'm pretty sure one of my 3 million connections can probably help this person. But asking me to do the heavy lifting for you is a recipe for being ignored and this is why most people fail at networking. They choose the easy path of "let me know if you hear of anything" and stop at that.

The magic of LinkedIn is that it removes the vaguery of the way networking used to be. The entire point of LinkedIn is to allow you to take charge of the process and ask for specific help, as in "I see you are connected to Bob Smith at GE. I'm interested in marketing opportunities there. Would you mind introducing me to Bob?". The difference between the two is enormous. In the old scenario, your contact has to think back to every person the've ever met in their entire life and try to envision exactly how to match up your goals with their contacts. In a LinkedIn scenario, your contact really doesn't have to worry about much of anything other than are they willing to introduce you to one of their other friends (and if you have chosen your LinkedIn connections wisely, they won't hesitate to do so).

Wondering more about how to use LinkedIn in your job or internship search?

We recently had a guest lectureby Marc Halpert on using LinkedIn. Some great stuff in his presentation for anyone trying to build a LinkedIn network for a job search.